Woman 'didn't know she was suspect'

The American student held in connection with the murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy did not realise she was being interviewed as a suspect in the case, it has emerged.

Amanda Knox, 20, also claimed she was told that having a lawyer present at the time would have "made things worse for her".

The disclosures came from a conversation between Knox and her parents, William Knox and Edda Mellas, at Capanne prison on November 17, which was bugged by police.

She has been held since being arrested on November 6, and was on Friday refused bail. Two other people are also in custody suspected of sexually assaulting and killing Miss Kercher, a 21-year-old Leeds University student from Coulsdon, Surrey, on the night of November 1.

She was found with her throat slit at the house in Perugia she shared with three others, including Knox, and police said there was evidence of a violent sexual encounter.

Italian Raffaele Sollecito, 23, was Knox's boyfriend at the time. He was arrested on November 6 and was also refused bail on Friday. Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, an Ivorian with joint Italian nationality, is awaiting extradition from Germany where he was arrested on November 20.

In the leaked conversation between Knox and her parents, she complained of being cold in prison as they talked generally about the case.

Knox apparently told her parents that the entire city was convinced that the real killer had been caught.

She added that everyone in the police headquarters had been excited when they thought that she had confessed to something during questioning. But she wasn't sure of what had happened, she said, and had not had a lawyer to advise her.

Her mother asked if she had requested a lawyer, to which Knox responded that she hadn't because she didn't know she was being interviewed as a suspect and thought police were "just asking a few questions".